$155 Million in Environmental Commitments in Limbo After Congestion Pricing Pause
The City
by: Jonathan Custodio
Hochul announced in a surprise video on June 5 that she would be pausing the congestion pricing plan indefinitely, sparking a pair of lawsuits from transit advocates and a civic association. It has also left ambitious and expensive capital projects, such as making more subway stations ADA-accessible and extending the Second Avenue Subway into Harlem, without apparent funding sources.
Arif Ullah, executive director of South Bronx Unite, an environmental advocacy organization, told THE CITY that Bronx residents needed health resources and that those shoud never have been a pay-off for backing the congestion pricing plan and the further damage it could cause in their neighborhoods.
“Those programs and that funding should never have been used as a bargaining chip for the decades of discriminatory public policies. We should have had those investments and that injection of funding regardless,” said Ullah, who also questioned the preventative use of an asthma center. “We know that there is asthma here. I don’t know what the objective of that asthma center is. One asthma center is not going to address the poor health outcomes in this community.”
